Projected Estimates of African American Medical Graduates of Closed Historically Black Medical Schools | Health Disparities | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network

Projected Estimates of African American Medical Graduates of Closed Historically Black Medical Schools | Health Disparities | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network

U.S. missed out on more than 35,000 more Black physicians because of shuttered schools

There could have been more than 35,000 additional Black physicians had historically Black colleges and universities with a medical program at the beginning of the 20th century not shuttered. In 1910, a national review of medical education programs, called the Flexner report, recommended that the medical programs of only two HBCUs continue to operate. In a new study, researchers extrapolated how many more Black physicians would have graduated had the five other schools that were open at the time of the 1910 report not closed, and found that between 27,700 and 35,300 more doctors would have emerged from these schools in the years between their closure and 2019. Given the current underrepresentation of Black physicians, the authors of the study recommend that HBCUs could consider opening medical programs to repopulate the pipeline with Black students.